In Lugar de Baixo, on the 17th of May 2009 at 5:10 pm Hugo and Catarina observed and photographed a pair of Coots Fulica atra feeding 4 recently hatched young, bright red, bold crown, encircled with orange downy feathers and red bill, which proves to be the first breeding record for this species for the Madeira Archipelago. On the 18th of May a movie was made and a week later another movie was made with only 3 chicks this time...

We have been quiet with bird news for a while as we have passed several days at sea with Hadoram Shirihai trying to photograph Zino's Petrels... But for this matter you will have to wait for Hadoram's trip report which will be posted soon with many interesting observations!

Here is a trip report kindly sent by Andrew Moon:

Another sea expedition with Hadoram Shirihai to photograph Zino's Petrel... Sorry but for now we will only publish the vagrant birds we have seen but soon we will have another Hadoram's trip report!

So here are the interesting species we have observed during these 9 days at Madeira sea:

Monday, 20th April 2009
Sabine's Gull Xema sabini

Tuesday, 21st April 2009
Swinhoe's Storm-petrel Oceanodroma monorhis

Sightings kindly sent by Willi Stani (WS) from Austria and by Nick Littlewood (NL) from UK: